


Not Quite Lost, Not Quite Found

by paperwar



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Asian Character, Awkward Conversations, Chromatic Character, Chromatic Source, F/F, Future Fic, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperwar/pseuds/paperwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after graduation, old patterns are being outgrown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Lost, Not Quite Found

Chiyo is ready to go home and straight to bed, early as it is. This hasn't been the worst reception she's ever had to go to -- that honor was reserved for her cousin Kanako's wedding a few years back, when one of Kanako's coworkers was a little too friendly until he got just drunk enough to pass out.

This one had been a pleasure by comparison, although that didn't mean she enjoyed it. There'd been sentimental speeches. There'd been smiling and nodding until she wanted to scream. It wasn't the bride's fault. Mari and her new husband Daisuke were fine, just fine. Boring, but she'd known that from the first day they'd gotten together during university.

No, there just was something about weddings, no matter how picturesque or lovey-dovey. They were dull at best, but more often simply aggravating.

Tonight, she'd had enough alcohol to be able to put a cheerful face on, congratulate the couple, make small talk with people she didn't care about. She'd been pretty careful about cutting her consumption, but sometimes old habits were irresistible.

 

**

She likes to think her bitterness isn't related to her own romantic exploits.

Chiyo's first girlfriend at university had been a tiny butterfly of a girl in constant conflict about their relationship. Her anxiety over the morality of what they were doing had far outweighed any charm she'd had, so Chiyo broke it off.

Her second one? Chiyo might've been in love, though she only admits that to herself on nights when she's too drunk to pretend. She'd been so full of joy, just blooming with it -- she cringes to remember it now -- until the day she ran into Chisato kissing another girl in the back of the library.

After that, Chiyo had avoided entanglements. She'd needed a break. Or maybe she'd been waiting for something. Or someone.

 

**

The hotel staff are ushering out the guests with alacrity, and she wonders how many more receptions they're going to cram in that evening. As she weaves her unsteady way through the lobby, her heel catches on an uneven piece of carpet. Her arms windmill embarrassingly for a moment, but she doesn't fall. Cursing herself for selecting the very highest heels she owned that day, she glances around to see if anyone saw her.

And there, standing by the door, is Momoe, resplendent in a royal blue dress and talking to the groom's older brother.

_The whole night wasted_, Chiyo thinks. Why hadn't she run into Momoe earlier?

Maybe she'd seen Chiyo and was avoiding her.

What a horrible thought. Chiyo refuses to believe it. Maybe Chiyo had just been too bent on self-medication to notice.

Momoe looks much the same as she had five years ago: glowing with energy and enthusiasm, like she's a heartbeat away from exploding across the room with some ridiculous idea that will make sense as soon as she says it.

And like she's not that much older than Chiyo. Which she isn't.

Her dress is elegant without being pretentious. Chiyo can't picture her mincing along in stiletto heels and a dress that pinned her knees together, and indeed, this one is a sensible length and not tight; Momoe can still move in it. But as comfortable as it looks, it nevertheless showcases the curve of her ass and the enormous swell of her breasts: the neckline, while not the most daring possible, is tantalizing. Chiyo thinks it might be the most perfect dress in the world. Though really, that has more to do with the body inside it.

Momoe's yanking the zipper on a matching beaded purse. The action seems absurdly feminine and fussy, though Chiyo supposes she has to carry her phone and wallet and keys somehow.

Chiyo pauses. She's going to have to walk by Momoe to leave the hotel and she can't imagine not greeting her, even if it's possible to sneak by unseen. She doesn't want to, anyway: it feels like it would be breaking the laws of physical matter to walk by and pretend not to see her. She smooths her hair, a quick nervous motion, and clears her throat. She doesn't want to sound froggy when she says hello. Will she remember Chiyo? Will she even want to speak to her? And is that guy her boyfriend?

While Chiyo's steeling herself, Momoe looks up. For one terrifying second, she freezes, and then her face splits into one of those huge grins, the ones that feel like the sun, like there isn't anything else you can do but turn towards the heat of that regard. Chiyo can't help it; her arms open and she surges forward. By the time her brain catches up with her body, she is relieved to find that Momoe is hugging her back.

They start gabbing at once, words tumbling over each other like water. It turns out Momoe is a friend of the groom's family. Judging by the nonchalant excuses the groom's brother gives as he departs, Chiyo's pretty sure that they're not together, at all, and better yet, neither of them want to be.

Chiyo rattles off something brief and dismissive about university -- yes, she'd gone back to softball and done reasonably well. Yes, now she's working, but the less said about that the better (though Momoe makes an approving comment about how Chiyo's data analysis skills must come in handy at the bank). Momoe is still coaching at Nishiura; she doesn't think she'll ever have another team like their boys, but the ones she has now might yet go somewhere. And now that people were taking her -- and the school -- seriously, she's been able to quit working so many part-time jobs and rely on the efficient fundraising machinery of the parents' association.

_This is how it should've been_, Chiyo thinks. _We could never speak like this in high school._ The situation then had required a great deal of attention to the reason they were thrown together in the first place: a new baseball team, loaded with promise but also deeply challenged. By default, much of the interaction Chiyo had with Momoe needed to focus on that.

But even around the margins, in every little moment free of immediate demands, there had been a constant hesitation. _I was the little high school girl._ The thought was a familiar, resigned refrain. There had been no way around that, and nothing she did had seemed able to bridge that gap, to take physical chemistry and undergird it with emotional intimacy. Momoe had been her first kiss. The hasty, hidden moments they'd had, no more than a few kisses and gropes, were some of her best memories from Nishiura. She knew she'd always given too much weight to the tenuous connection between them. But that awareness had never allowed her to leave it behind.

Momoe and Chiyo exit the hotel together. They're not quite drunk enough to have to lean on each other, but they're doing it anyway.

Momoe points out her bike, parked near the door. It looks like the same one Chiyo remembers from high school.

"You rode here wearing that dress?" Chiyo is shocked and impressed. Momoe must've had to hike the fabric up around her thighs to be able to straddle the seat. Chiyo likes the thought of that.

They take a taxi, of course. Chiyo doesn't have a car, even if she'd been sober, and Momoe is just slightly too smashed. They make an agreement, punctuated by giddy laughter, that someday soon Momoe will take Chiyo out on her bike. When they stumble out and into Momoe's apartment, they barely get the door shut before finding each other's mouths for a frantic, messy kiss.

She'd thought Momoe was exceptional as a lovestruck high school student. Now that she's had experience with other women, she's even more appreciative of Momoe's lush strength. The way her unfailing self-assurance informs the way she stands, walks, moves. The way she's completely certain that Chiyo wants her.

Chiyo can't help but want her, has wanted her since the instant they met.

Something that's changed, however, is Momoe herself: she isn't holding back. Here, she's grabbing Chiyo's hands, bringing them to her own underwear. She sinks her teeth into Chiyo's shoulder with a muffled sigh. A minute later, Momoe nearly rips her own dress trying to remove it. And that, Chiyo thinks, would be a shame, given how she looked in it.

They'd shared a few torrid moments during high school, but Momoe had always cut them short. Tonight? It doesn't seem like anything here is going to meet an untimely ending.

**

In the morning, Chiyo wakes up suffused with lingering post-orgasm contentment that morphs swiftly first into dread, then determination. Her mouth's papery; faint threads of pain -- not one of those hangover headaches, not _now_, she pleads with herself -- trace her skull. Not quite as bad as she might have expected, overall. Though her neck's also got a crook in it, probably from contorting herself to fit around Momoe on the mattress, who'd seemed determined, in sleep, to sprawl across as much of it as possible.

Chiyo goes, wincing only a little and making more noise than necessary, to shower. Momoe's bathroom is tidy and basic. Her soap is the plainest, cheapest kind commonly available. She doesn't stint on her shampoo, though, Chiyo discovers, creating for herself a lavish halo of raspberry-scented foam. After drying off, she returns to the bedroom. Momoe is awake, as she had intended.

"You," Chiyo says, with more dignity than being wrapped in a towel would generally confer, "are the most amazing woman I've ever met. But if you're going to screw me around like you did in high school, then I'll say thanks and goodbye." She tilts her head and meets Momoe's gaze, lips pressed together to keep the rest of the words she wants to say in.

Momoe has the decency to look abashed, though she doesn't blush. "Well," she begins. "Yes. High school. You were a student -- "

Chiyo frowns. "I wasn't _your_ student. You weren't a teacher. You let me kiss you! You kissed me!" She's hoping Momoe doesn't notice the tears that have started in her eyes, to her own furious astonishment, as she paces to the window and back. "I'm not that much younger than you," she blurts.

Sitting up, blanket falling unheeded around her waist, Momoe raises a hand. Like she's giving a signal from the dugout, so deliberate, so confident that she will be obeyed. "Okay, I didn't handle that very well. But I was a new coach, with a new team. A woman coach. People were just waiting for me to make a mistake. If anyone found out about us? The scandal would've ruined any chances the team had." She gestures sharply to cut off Chiyo's noise of protest. "I was unfair to you. I should've just stopped things right at the start. I know. I know."

She smiles a little, eyes looking off to the side but not seeing anything in the here and now, and says, "I messed up. Would an apology now even mean anything?" She looks at Chiyo for an answer, but none is offered. So Momoe nods, and says, "I apologize. I'm sorry. Really. I made a big mistake." Her hands twist the edge of the sheet and she gives a little shrug. "That probably sounds really insincere, doesn't it?"

Another moment stretches out. "I should've stopped you," Momoe repeats. "But, you know, you were a pretty girl."

"You sound like a pervert." Chiyo grinds the words out.

Momoe throws up her hands. Her laugh is a sound like stepping on cracked glass. "I can't win, is that it, Chiyo-chan?" She gives the diminuitive nickname a bitter tinge. "You kept insisting the whole time that you weren't a little girl. You even said it a minute ago. So am I a pervert or not?"

Chiyo flushes but can't come up with a rebuttal.

Momoe lifts her eyes, bold as usual, and continues, "You were a pretty girl. I had fun. And now we're both adults."

That startles a laugh out of Chiyo, disbelief and dizzy pleasure entwined. But Chiyo's not done yet: "That doesn't mean you're any less likely to screw me around. How do I know you just won't find another way to do it?"

Momoe purses her lips. "You don't. Isn't that the way it is with any two people?" She rests her elbows on her knees, steeples her hands and leans her chin on them. "How do you know I don't just want to see you out the door and wish you well?"

Chiyo's head rocks back. She wants to slap herself for being so obviously needy. How did she let that slip? Maybe Momoe just wanted a memory, the conclusion of something that started a long time ago. Once again, Chiyo's transparent, while at the same time she's scrambling to find her footing. Maybe nothing had changed, after all.

"If that's what you want, then tell me to go," she replies, shrugging in a manner that is a bit too stiff to be natural. She scans the floor, spies her bra, and snatches it up, along with yesterday's dress, which seems to have developed a tear along the hem, probably from their combined rush to remove it last night. She wants very much to be wearing something more than Momoe's towel.

Momoe laughs, and this time it's that old, familiar, challenging laugh. "I didn't say that. But you seemed to assume my past behavior was going to be relevant longer than this morning."

"Well, what do you want, then?" Chiyo says, knowing as she releases the words that she's sounding too impatient, too much like the high school girl again.

"I think," Momoe says, "that we don't know each other. The last time I saw you, you were what, 18? I don't know who you are now, and you don't know who I am either."

_Or who you were, either, when you weren't being the coach and weren't trying to get me to leave you alone_, Chiyo thinks. Her chest feels tight, and she's not sure if it's misery or hope: that feeling of being one step from the edge could encompass either. Or both.

"I would like to get to know you," Chiyo breathes. She breaks their eye contact, can't face the answer forming in Momoe's eyes, whatever it may be.

Momoe leans forward and grabs one of Chiyo's hands. She tugs, and Chiyo finds herself sitting crookedly on the edge of the bed, clothes dropped on the floor, forgotten. Those stupid tears are still in her eyes, but she can't help but look up at Momoe.

"I think," Momoe says, "I would like to get to know you too." She raises Chiyo's hand to her lips and kisses her knuckles.

"Maybe," Chiyo says, "we start there." That felt desperate. Did she sound like she was pleading? But this is a chance she never thought she'd get, a place she never thought she'd get to, now appearing when she least expected it. This could be the worst idea she's ever had, to jump back into this mess, but she can't let it go.

Time seems to elongate; Chiyo experiences at least a year's worth of nerves while waiting for a response.

"Yes, that sounds good," Momoe says, releasing her hand and sweeping the covers away. She stands up -- drawing Chiyo's eyes to that magnificent body -- and pulls Chiyo to her feet. "Shall we start over breakfast? I'm sure I can manage some toast," Momoe says with a shrug, like she's embarrassed at such a meager offering.

_Or maybe_, Chiyo thinks, _she's just as nervous as I am._

"Yes, let's start there," Chiyo agrees, half-dazed with happiness. She gives Momoe a kiss to make it official, and they go off to investigate the contents of her kitchen.


End file.
